Sales to Schools, Hospitals, & Institutions

Arizona Resources

Prescott College Crossroads Café

Get a delicious, local-food-rich breakfast or lunch in Prescott, Arizona, at the newly opened Crossroads Cafe. A part of the larger Crossroads Center at Prescott College, the cafe serves as a meeting point for residents, students, visitors and staff in the area. The cafe offers a number of local food delights from vegetarian Borscht to Beef Bourguignon to daily sandwich specials, salads and soups.

Colorado Resources

Colorado Farm to School

The Colorado Farm to School Project was launched in February 2010 with the support of a Specialty Crop Block Grant through the Colorado Department of Agriculture. Colorado Farm to School supports the development of regional farm-to-school networks across the state.

This program provides New Mexico students with regionally grown fresh fruits and vegetables, while providing a new market for farmers, an economic benefit to both urban and rural areas, and assists schools meet new Federal nutrition requirements.

The National Farm to School Network is a collaborative project with the goal of strengthening and expanding activities in states with existing programs and assisting others that do not yet have programs.

This publication provides farmers, school administrators, and institutional food-service planners with contact information and descriptions of existing programs that have made these connections between local farmers and local school lunchrooms, college dining halls, or cafeterias in other institutions.

Eat Smart- Farm Fresh: A Guide to Buying and Serving Locally-Grown Produce in School MealsThis is a report published by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service that evaluates several aspects of beginning farm to school projects. Topics covered include; distribution models, building support for local purchasing, and how to find locally produced foods.

The Community Food Security Coalition has a webpage devoted to "Farm to College" information and resources. In addition to resources to start new projects, the site has a report on existing Farm to College projects.

Farm to Hospital: Supporting Local Agriculture and Improving Health CareThis brochure introduces interested farmers and hospital food service departments to the ins and outs of developing partnerships between hospitals and local farms. Included are examples of ways hospitals can improve the food they offer, issues for farmers to consider if they are interested in selling products to area hospitals, and specific case studies of successful programs.http://www.foodsecurity.org/F2H_Brochure.pdf

Direct Marketing to Schools: A New Opportunity for Family Farmers

This case study—part of a larger study on direct marketing techniques used by small farmers—focuses on the experiences of six farmers in California who have participated in farm-to-school farmers market salad bar projects.http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/sfs/dm/cs/dm